


Fiend Zoned

by combatfaerie



Series: Fiend Zoned [1]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, Mind Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 01:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20826974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/combatfaerie/pseuds/combatfaerie
Summary: The Fiend might be feuding with Seth Rollins, but that doesn't mean Becky Lynch isn't in his sights too.





	1. Chapter 1

Becky knew some WWE superstars found kids tiresome at signings, but she was the opposite: their endless energy and love for wrestling made the time seem to fly by. The signing was only three hours long, but she had lost track of how many babies she had held and how many kids she had hugged. Her bracelet collection was threatening to eclipse her entire left forearm, and she had seen fanworks ranging from embroidered art to tattoos. How could she not love it?

With so many faces, though, it was easy to lose track of things. She had almost decided against wearing her engagement ring, but since she couldn't wear it at events, Becky had to take every opportunity she could; besides, most fans had loved it, congratulating her and wishing her and Seth well. The ring had survived just fine, but as the line was finally dwindling down, it was something decidedly less shiny that caught her eye: a bit of grey fluff by the signing table. "Hang on," she told the assistant, who had been ready to call the next fan forward.

Becky knelt and reached for the fuzzy item. Some kid had probably dropped their toy while posing for their picture; she only hoped they were still on site so they could be reunited. . . .

_Run!_ The word was so squeaky that Becky thought the item was a dog toy and she had stepped on it, but she couldn't remember anyone at the signing with a dog. When she raised her head, thinking the assistant had spoken to her, Becky noticed a swath of white around the grey fluff. It almost looked like a bandage, and it caved in when she poked it.

_Run, Becky! Run now!_ Well, that wasn't your normal squeaky-toy fare. Becky sat back and reached for the fuzzy item again, but it disappeared beneath the long table covering.

Almost like it had been yanked away.

As she rose, Becky lifted the edge of the table covering and looked beneath it, but saw nothing aside from a few wayward markers. "Is everything okay, Ms. Lynch?" the assistant asked. "If you dropped your water bottle, I can get you another one."

"No. No, I'm fine. Thanks." Becky straightened up and got ready to start signing again, putting the odd toy out of her mind—but she did move to the other side of the table.


	2. Chapter 2

Becky always used to be one of the first women to arrive to a show. She'd been eager to show her dedication, her willingness to put in the work. Now she had to do so many interviews, promos, and product plugs that she was often the last one to get to the locker room and she ended up changing alone. So when she saw a familiar shock of black hair, she smiled. "Paige! No one told me you were going to be here tonight." Becky started setting her bag to the side so she could hug her friend. "Lots of people returning lately. How's things, baby girl?" 

When Becky straightened up, though, she realized Paige hadn't replied. Was it actually Nikki and she hadn't noticed? Ready to apologize, she looked back over to the bench. It wasn't Paige. It wasn't Nikki either.

It wasn't human.

_He told you to run, Rebecca._ The voice rippled around her like waves. _When a rabbit runs, there's a reason. There's something to be scared of. And you SHOULD be scared . . . baby girl._

Becky didn't move. She wasn't sure if the thing was a puppet or a marionette; she couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from. What she did know was that she didn't want to let it out of her sight as she reached for the door. Locked. She slowly pulled her phone from her pocket and, without shifting her gaze, called Seth. "Hey, babe." He sounded almost bubbly. "Miss me already?"

"I need you to come to the women's locker room," Becky said quickly. Had the doll moved? She was sure it was closer to the wall before.

Seth laughed. "I thought we weren't doing the locker room stuff anymore, Becks. Nearly half the roster's walked in on us by now—"

"Not that," Becky snapped. Yeah, the doll had definitely moved. And she was certain those daisies hadn't been on the floor before. "The door's locked. I can't get out."

"Huh. That's weird. Sure. I'll find someone with keys and be right there."

A second. Maybe two. Becky had barely glanced down at her phone to end the call, but when she looked up again, the doll was at the end of the bench closest to her. She tried to concentrate on listening, but she couldn't hear any mechanical whirring. How was it moving? _Rebecca, you need to GO._ The voice seemed to echo in Becky's head.

"I'm _trying_," she muttered, yanking on the door handle again. Still locked. She could hear people in the corridor walking past and thought about calling for help, but she already felt silly for calling Seth. It was a _doll_. Surely it wasn't really moving. It was just a combination of an overactive mind running on not enough sleep.

_Rebecca. . . ._

Becky refused to budge, not wanting the doll—or her imagined version of it, whatever it was—to get any closer. When she finally heard a key jiggle in the lock, she swore under her breath. "About time." Her phone was creaking in her death grip and she made herself shove it back in her pocket.

When the lock finally caught, someone knocked on the door. "Becks?" Seth called out. The maintenance staff probably knocked as a matter of protocol.

"Yeah, come in." Becky kept staring down the doll. It seemed to have edged back a bit. "Someone left that in here," she began, pointing at the bench, "and—"

Frowning, Seth stepped forward, and Becky reached for his arm to stop him. "A flower?" he asked, picking up a plastic daisy and twirling it between his fingers. 

"What? No. I mean, yes, there were, but. . . ." It was a relatively small locker room and Becky's gaze swept over it twice, but there was no sign of the doll—not beyond the flower, anyway. "The door was locked, right?"

"Yeah. . . . " Seth dropped the flower and pulled her close. "Becks, you okay? You haven't been sleeping well lately. . . ."

"I'm—" Becky stopped herself before saying _fine_. First there was that abandoned toy at the signing, and now the creepy doll in the locker room. "Can you just stay here while I get ready, please? I'll be quick."

Seth looked like he wanted to say something, but he just nodded and tossed the plastic daisy in the garbage before leaning against the wall. When Becky was done, he pulled her into a hug. "If you think someone's messing with you," he began, "let's just go talk to Steph. I'm sure there's some unused rooms backstage we can use as a temporary locker room tonight, and we can shower back at the hotel. . . ."

Becky shook her head. "No, you're right. It's probably just lack of sleep." She gave him a quick kiss before pinching his ass. "You'd better go get ready. You're on before I am."

"Maybe you should come with me," he teased, tugging on her hand, "just in case my door gets locked too."

"Nice try." Becky walked with him, though, and waited outside the locker room, and the rest of the night was so uneventful, so typical, that she had almost completely forgot about the incident in her locker room—until she opened her bag back at the hotel when Seth was in the shower, and a cluster of dead daisies tumbled out to the floor.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you sure?" 

Seth wasn't giving her a strange look; there was even any disbelief in his tone. But as soon as he said those three words, Becky regretted bringing up what she had seen. She had waited a few days after the locker room incident just to be sure, but she was convinced her mind wasn't playing tricks on her. Ramblin' Rabbit had been at the signing, snatched away before she could heed his warning. And then Abby the Witch had been in the locker room days later. Now she was being vigilant, checking corners and shadows any time she entered a room.

Her shoulders must have slumped, because Seth quickly pulled her against his chest. It made moving forward in the Catering queue difficult, but his touch had always helped her stay grounded. "Becks, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." Seth pressed a kiss to her neck. "Why didn't you say anything when you called me to the locker room?"

"What could I say? _Hey, babe, there's a demented murder puppet staring at me_?" Becky huffed out a long breath. Sure, she had a vivid imagination, but it wasn't the kind that was prone to hallucinations. And even Seth had seen the daisies, so she clearly hadn't made those up. "Maybe someone's just messing with me because it's almost Halloween. . . ."

"_Almost Halloween_?" Seth echoed. "Becks, there's still a week of September left. . . ."

Becky shook her head. "Unless it's actually Halloween, it's _almost_ Halloween. All the time. Trust me." Halloween had been one of her favourite things about moving to North America. As they shuffled forward in the line, she turned to look at him. "Or is Creative trying to bring in a real Sister Abigail and this is their way of hyping up a feud between her and me?"

"I've never heard of Creative doing something like that without warning, if only for safety reasons. Besides, it's not like any cameras were around, so they wouldn't have any footage to use." Seth reached around her to grab a bottle of water and froze. "Uh, Becks?"

"If you're just going to tease me again. . . ." Becky began, pulling Seth's arm off her shoulders. Then she paused too, staring at the snack table. There were plenty of Skittles, since they were a current sponsor, and lots of other candy too. And at the back of the table, wrappers strewn at his feet, was Huskus the Pig, munching away happily.

He seemed to brighten as they looked at him. "Oh, hallo!" He opened another candy and let its wrapper fall to his lap. "I would share with you, Seth, but they are mint chocolate." Then the pig held out the chocolate. "Would you like one, Becky? They are very good! Yum yum!"

Without thinking, Seth tossed his bottle of water at the pig, knocking over a bowl of candies in the process. A yelp came from beneath the table and a moment later, Drake Maverick emerged, plucking dropped candies out of his hair. "Can't I lurk under a table in peace anymore?" Then he glanced around, spotted R-Truth and the 24/7 Championship, and jumped over the table to chase him, creating an even bigger mess in the process. 

Drake's mad pursuit of R-Truth distracted everyone else in Catering from Seth's seemingly random outburst, and he ducked quickly, peering under the table. "Nothing," he reported, grabbing another bottle of water before taking Becky's hand and leading her away.

"Not surprised." Once they were out of Catering, Becky glanced up at him. "Believe me now?"

"Yeah." Seth gazed down the empty hallway. It was clean, well-lit, quiet. It shouldn't have been threatening. But a stuffed pig shouldn't have been unnerving either. When the Fiend was involved, nothing was certain—or safe.


	4. Chapter 4

_Incidents_. It was a bland, clinical word, but Becky didn't know what else to use. Calling them _attacks_ didn't seem right: she had never been hurt or even really threatened. Seth was worried, though, and had asked her to stay at his place until things were sorted out. Part of her wondered if it was just an elaborate way to get her to move in, but that was ridiculous: they were already engaged, so living together at some point was pretty much a given, and Seth seemed just as disturbed by seeing the pig puppet in Catering as she had been.

Becky wasn't about to give up her California life for good, of course. She arranged for a friend to housesit for her while she was away and hoped that the Wyatt weirdness hadn't rubbed off on her place. Since she didn't plan to be gone for all that long, she only packed two boxes of clothes and books; if she needed anything in a pinch, she could call her friend and get it sent over by courier. 

Wearing the roll of packing tape around her wrist like a bracelet, Becky carried one box down to the foyer and headed back upstairs to get the next. Her phone beeped on the way, so she stopped on the landing, glancing down before pulling her phone out of her pocket.

The box she had just taken down was gone.

Another beep from the phone. This time she recognized it as the tone she had set for Seth, so she glanced down at the screen. _Hey, babe_, followed by some hearts. Then _Everything okay? Don't worry too much about packing. We can grab whatever you need here._

_All good_, she typed quickly. _Just bringing the last box down and then I'll call the courier._ Then Becky looked down at the foyer again. The box was there, but it didn't look right. She had left it flush against the wall and now it was in the middle of the floor, light glinting off the torn strip of tape. Instead of grabbing the second box, Becky took a can of hair spray from her bathroom and went back downstairs, gaze sweeping back and forth. "Paranoia by puppet," she muttered to herself, tucking her phone back in her pocket. "What the fuck is wrong with me?" Seth's tone chimed again, but Becky ignored it as she crept forward to the box. The urge to kick it was ridiculously strong, but she didn't want to damage any books she had inside.

_Why didn't you run, Rebecca?_ The voice seemed to echo off the floor, off the walls, off her bones. _The rabbit told you. The witch told you. You might have had a chance._ The box lid popped up, revealing a gnarled bird's head. _Now he's gonna get you. Darkness falls, and so will you._

Becky's phone beeped again, making her jump, and when she blinked the bird was gone, her box back against the wall and taped up. Setting the can of hair spray to the side, Becky knelt by the box and tore the tape free, pawing though everything she had packed. All there, all where she had put it, with no sign of tampering. "Fuck." Hands shaking, she took the roll of packing tape from her wrist and resealed the box. Then she retreated to the stairs and pulled her phone out again. Steve Austin didn't live far from her; if he was home and he wasn't busy, maybe he could come over for a beer. . . .

As she opened Seth's latest text, she was dreading some question like _Has anything weird happened?_ She didn't want to lie to him, but he was already so fixated on his upcoming feud with The Fiend. Luckily it was just a gif of a pug bumping into walls because there was a box over its head. The second message was a caption: _Me without you here_.

Laughing, Becky slumped back against the stair railing. _Then take the box off your head, you dope_, she replied, putting a kiss-print emoji after it. Then she found the beer emoji and added _Going to call Steve and see if he wants a beer._

Before she could lose her nerve, Becky did just that. The second box could stay upstairs for a little while longer. Good company and good beer ought to clear her head.


	5. Chapter 5

Life was about detours. That was how Becky justified the unscheduled stop at Joshy's gym. Even though the beer and the chat with Stone Cold had been awesome, she could still feel the tension in her shoulders, so she went for a quick workout before she headed back to Davenport. Joshy even arranged for her to have the gym to herself, so she put on some of her favourite music and got to work while he caught up on the business side of the gym. After about half an hour, he stepped out of the office and waved at her. "Ran out of paper," Joshy called out. "So I'm gonna run out and pick some up. You need anything while I'm gone?"

Becky shook her head and gulped down some water. "Nah, I'm good. I shouldn't need any spotting while you're gone." The last-minute workout he'd put together for her was more about maintenance than anything, and she knew all the exercises involved.

"Cool. I'll lock up on my way out. See you in a bit." Keys in hand, Joshy waved again and headed for the employee exit.

As soon as Joshy left, Becky grabbed her phone and sent Seth a quick text. Normally their trainer was adamant about using their phones only as tools during workouts, so she took the opportunity to cheat. _Gym all to myself!_ she typed, then did a full-360 video of the empty gym to add. Once it was sent, she put her phone back down and started to head to the next station.

Then the music cut out. 

"What the fuck?" Heading towards the stereo, Becky cursed. Of course it would die when Joshy was gone. She knew how to use the thing, not how to fix it. After jabbing a few buttons didn't help, she shook her head and gave up. It wasn't like she needed music to work out; it just made it more enjoyable, especially when she was alone. 

The lights went out next, first the large overhead lights and then all the smaller individual ones, including the ones in Joshy's office. With no windows—a privacy measure for his clients that she normally appreciated—it left the gym in complete darkness. "Shit." Becky paused, trying to think of how far away she was from her cell phone. The flashlight function would drain her battery, but at least she'd be able to get to an external door and wait out the strange power outage. After two steps, though, she collided with some piece of gym equipment and swore. "Fuck." Bending over double, she clutched at her battered shin. For all the time she spent in Joshy's gym, she ought to be able to navigate it blindfolded by now.

Then a fan of light spread out, flashing right over her eyes and temporarily blinding her. Was Joshy back already? Maybe he forgot his wallet. It would suck for him, but it was definitely good for her. "Josh?" she called out. "Is the power out on the whole block, or just here?"

_Hello, Rebecca._

Joshy called her _Rebecca_ about as often as she called him _Joshua_, which was virtually never.

The power being cut. The flash of light. It was all uncomfortably familiar. . . .

"_Shit._" Becky straightened up quickly. This wasn't going to be some goofy puppet or creepy doll. Not this time. Which way was the locker room? There was an emergency exit down that hall. It would set off the building alarm, but she could apologize to Joshy later. She just had to navigate a death trap of gym equipment to get there.

Another light cut through the darkness, weaving madly, but it wasn't reassuring in the least. _I've been waiting for you to let me in, Rebecca._

It was an idiot move and she knew it, but Becky made one last desperate dive for the area where she thought her phone should be. Her shoulder slammed into something metal and unforgiving and she knew she would pay for it in bruises later, but then she heard a familiar thud. She had dropped enough cell phones in her lifetime to know that sound, and she reached out blindly, sweeping her arm across the floor until it connected with something. "Thank you," she whispered, jabbing at the screen as she rose. It seemed to take forever for the screen to light, for her passcode to be accepted, for the flashlight app to activate.

Maybe not forever, but certainly too long. By the time the blinding light blossomed out of the phone, The Fiend was already in front of her, ominous and absolute. One hand reached for her throat, the other for her phone.

Darkness fell again, and so did she.


End file.
